This Is Not a Competition People

Now, i’ve written before here and here about other people making innappropriate comments about my kid when he gets all screamy in public. So no worries that this is going to be another volatile rant. I mean, it could turn into one, but that isn’t my plan.

What i don’t get is that parenting for some folks seems to be some sort of competition. An Olympic sport, if you will, with hidden judges behind every bush and mailbox waiting to enter their scores for both the technical and the creative. Only i can never see these judges. either a) they’re really wiley or b) THEY DON’T FUCKING EXIST.

oop, sorry. almost got ranty there.

Now, i will admit i’m spared alot of this because i am anti social. And i despise talking to other moms about anything other than how to mix the perfect gibson. But sometimes you get stuck in that situation where you just have to hear about Billy’s new probiotics or the fact that Jasmine was NEVER put in a swing. I swear i’m gonna start looking around more when they tell me these things to see if i can spy one of the judges lurking about.

Maybe it’s autism that has changed my view. I mean–it’s NICE and all what you are doing with your typical kid, but 9 times out of ten, it involves something that wouldn’t apply/work/interest my kid. Or, its something that would make him screamy, and i share that with you, only to see the look of absolute horror pass over you. Which kinda gives me the giggles.

Why yes, this is pure sugar and food dye. And?

You know, i get that, as parents, people wanna share. I do too. (hello, this is a BLOG) but i have never understood the, “well, WE do [fill in snooty activity here]”, as if doing this activity will grant you some sort of parenting badge.

That’s it. They all must be girl scouts or something. I never joined girl scouts because, well…I thought it was dumb so i never bugged my mom to join. But that seems to be the mentality now that i think on it. These women are working toward some sort of merit badge in parenting. That must be it. Or in bitchy self-righteousness. Or snooty white girl problems. You get where i’m going here.

So imma go back to parenting my kid in my own style, sans badge. It works for us. And if it doesn’t, i add a triple salchow or a back flip with a halftwist. That always impresses the russian judge.

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12 thoughts on “This Is Not a Competition People”

This post is perfect. It seems that I keep running into moms who are so caught up in everything that they can sacrifice for their children (including some common sense) and it either goes one of two ways– they feel smug and self-satisfied, or they feel guilty as hell.
I refuse to be either. We will do some good things for the kiddos, some good things for ourselves, some good things for our community, and sometimes we will do some bad things, like have pizza rolls/snack night and stay up too late watching sketchy movies, or anything else that is ‘wrong’ and too much fun to give up. Has anyone ever considered what their perfectly parented child will become when they are an adult? How will those adult children deal with mistakes, gaffs, etc. if they’ve never seen one (or how to fix one) from their parents? Sheesh.

Ooooo! I wanna see you do that triple salchow! My style of parenting is different with each kid. One things is the same across the board. I hide all the papers we get from school about join this and that, Scouts, 4H, Team This and That, etc. The problem is if the kid really wants to do it, they magically find another flyer and, “Yay, Mom! We didn’t miss the deadline to register. You said we missed the deadline?”. And yes, then comes the detailed play by play on FB with photos and commentary so out of town grandma doesn’t fly in to beat me up.

You have to do what works for you and your family. “They” aren’t the ones raising him; you are. One thing that came to my mind years ago when someone was trying to tell me, in a not so nice way, what to do about my babies was “When you get the stretch marks for them, when you get the stitches where a needle should never be, when you start feeding and clothing them, when you stay up at night, all night when they’re sick, then you maybe have a right to make suggestions. Until then, back off!”

I’ve received a ton of criticism over the years from various people over how I’ve chosen to raise my children. In the end, I am only accountable to Heavenly Father. Like they used to say in junior high school “if they don’t like it, they can lump it.” I didn’t make sense back then either, but hey, it’s what we used to say in our neck of the woods. haha